


A Jump to the Left

by cordsycords



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - The Rocky Horror Picture Show, I finally capitalized my title so you knows shit's serious, I would highly recommend it, Love and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, While viewing the Rocky Horror Picture Show is not neccessary to read, because, if you don't want to watch it than at least listen to the music, it adds to the experience, y'know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 07:56:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15262875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordsycords/pseuds/cordsycords
Summary: Caleb is a self-described Halloween curmudgeon, quite happy to spend the season holed up in his apartment, working on his thesis while sipping on a glass of $10 wine. The day before it's all over, a scheduling conflict leads to him going to the opening night of a show in Nott's place.It's a theatre show, Jester swears, amusicaleven.





	A Jump to the Left

Halloween was one of Caleb’s least favourite times of the year. According to him, the entire month of October was just an extra reason for the students of the university district to get drunker, act stupider, and feel the need to attempt to scare the shit of him for no apparent reason. He had survived six years living in the same neighbourhood, four as an undergrad, and now two more as a Master’s candidate, and after so long he had finally created a system that was foolproof.

The first step was finding the correct roommate. He had gone wrong several times with that step in previous years, his first year especially when he was living in dorms and had no choice, and had refined his process of choosing the correct roommate over three years. It helped that he rented a relatively nice apartment, too expensive for people whose research wasn’t being funded. His current roommate of one year was a girl named Nott, who was in her third year of undergrad taking Chemistry. She was small and a bit skittish, and she was quiet when she needed to be. They got along quite well for two people who met on the Internet, and Caleb actually found that he was happier with her living with him.

With the roommate problem being solved with Nott, things got easier from there. The absence of decorations was a must, giving less reason for drunk hooligans to knock on his door in the middle of the night asking for candy. He refused to entertain the idea of dressing up, or going to haunted houses or taking part in any general Halloween-related revelry.

On the last three days of the month, he shut himself in his apartment. He bought a bottle of wine and made himself dinner and read a good book, or two, or three. Then, on November 1st, everything would go back to normal.

On October 30th, a Friday, there was a knock at the door. Caleb ignored it. And then there was a second knock, followed very quickly by a third, followed by a couple dozen of knocks until Caleb finally realized that only one person in the world would be knocking on his door in that particular style. He sighed to himself, put down his book, and walked to the door, unlocking it, “Jester, to what do I owe-“

“Hi Caleb!” The excitable girl screeched as her arms went around Caleb’s neck, pulling him down to her shorter height. He brought up a hand to pat her on the arm, looking behind her shoulder to see Fjord and Beauregard standing in the hallway, faces both slightly apologetic.

He had originally met the three of them in their collective first year of university when Jester had somehow gotten herself lost on his boys-only residence floor. She had been wandering the halls by herself, trying to find a friend of hers when Caleb had bumped into her while he was trying to get away from his roommate. She was friendly, and sweet, and wouldn’t take no for an answer, and he somehow ended up accompanying her as she knocked on every single door on the floor until she found Fjord. Beau came into the picture a couple days later, and Caleb had found himself in and out of the equation ever since then. They were good people; kind and utterly accepting of his idiosyncrasies, even if he ignored them for his studies more often than was socially acceptable.

“What’s all this? You know I’m not a big fan of the season,” he said, turning back into the apartment. The others accepted his silent invitation and followed him.

“Well we were actually s’posed to be here for Nott,” Beau started to explain.

“But she said she had a midterm on Monday,” Fjord continued.

“Oh you have to come, Caleb!” Jester said, clasping her hands out in front of her, “I promised Molly that I’d fill all the seats he gave me tickets for, and I just know he’ll get so nervous if there’s a seat in the front row that’s open.” She rambled on, overly-expressive as always as she placed the back of her hand over her forehead, “And it’s his first show too.”

“I do not know this person,” Caleb said.

“Wait, you don’t know Molly?” Beau asked.

“Of course you know Molly, Caleb,” Jester said.

Caleb wracked his brain, trying to remember Jester or Beau or Fjord or even _Nott_ ever mention someone named Molly. He came up with nothing, shrugging his shoulders.

“Well now you _have_ to come,” Jester shouted.

Caleb sighed, “Where are you going?”

Beau chuckled, “You know Rocky-”

“It’s a play! A musical! And my friend, Mollymauk, just got the biggest part in the whole thing and tonight is his first night, it’s very important.”

“It’s that big of a thing?”

“The biggest,” Jester said, with a hundred percent sincerity.

What he said next had him sitting in the back of Fjord’s truck twelve minutes later, legs pulled up to his chest, body shifting and bumping along the pot-holed city streets. He and Beau sat in near silence as Jester chattered away in the front seat, Fjord nodding along with her at the appropriate places. Determining that she was well distracted, Caleb leaned over to Beau and whispered into her ear.

“So who is this Molly?”

She shrugged her shoulders, “Jester’s friend. He’s… interesting to say the least. They’ve known each other for a long time, but he doesn’t tend to stay in one place apparently. Jester saw him again when she went home over the summer and then he just kinda showed up a week later.”

“And I haven’t met him?”

Beau gave him a look, “Dude, you barely see us more than once a month. And we’ve known you for like… five years.”

She was very correct, “You are very correct,” he sighed, collapsing back into the car seat.

“It’s not like you’re missing out on much. Molly’s just… Molly,” she said with a flourish of her hands, the expression on her face blatantly displaying some manner of distaste for Jester’s friend. Enough distaste for Caleb to be worried. He admired Beau for her bluntness, and always found it was a good idea to listen whenever she had an opinion about certain people.

He was very quickly beginning to regret this.

Looking out the window he saw the theatre coming up on their left. It was one of the older theatre’s in the city, with a ticket booth outside and everything. And just in front of the ticket booth, standing in line down the sidewalk and around the block, were a group of people obviously going to the same show as them. Which shouldn’t have been odd, if Caleb and his friends were going to a normal show like he had assumed in his own little naive way.

HIs eyes widened as he got a better look at what many of the lined-up patrons--men and women alike-- were wearing. There were corsets, fishnets, overly bedazzled jackets, and a whole lot of leather. Which wasn’t to say there weren’t others dressed normal-looking, there certainly were, but he couldn’t help but notice that several people were wearing similar sweater vests and dresses in the same shade of lavender purple. It all seemed terribly familiar, yet somehow his mind just didn’t seem to want to place where he had seen it all before.

“Beau, what the fuck is this?”

“Oh buddy, you’re in for a treat,” she clapped him on the shoulder, almost succeeding to sound sorry for him.

Dread filled his body, “Why do I feel as though I’m not?”

She chuckled, “You ever heard of the Rocky Horror Picture Show?”

He shifted in his seat, crystal clear memories of watching a grainy, poorly recorded version of the Rocky Horror Picture Show on his laptop after his parents had gone to sleep crashing through his mind.

He groaned, pressing his forehead against the glass of the window.

Fjord parked and they walked over to the theatre together. Instead of going to the end of the line, Jester went right to the front, where a large woman with a very intimidating stance stood in front of the door, refusing to let anyone in.

“Yasha,” Jester bounced up to her, “We’re here, and we found our replacement. How’s Molly?”

The woman, Yasha apparently, smiled, “Shitting his pants.”

“Oh no! Maybe we should-”

“No.”

“But Yasha, Molly needs-”

“Not this time, Jester,” Yasha shook her head, and crossed her arms in front of her chest, “You’ll only get him all riled up.”

Jester visibly deflated, “Fine. But you have to let us backstage after the show, okay?”

“Of course,” Yasha nodded, then gestured for them to join the line-up. Caleb followed behind the others, pocketing his hands in his overcoat and trying to appear as small as possible as he walked past the crowd of scantily-clad people. He kept his eyes in front of him, looking towards the ground, but he could still feel heat rise to his cheeks whenever he saw bare legs wrapped in fishnets out of the corner of his eye. 

They lined up and Jester took out her backpack, taking out several plastic bags filled with various items and doling them out to the others. Caleb took one absentmindedly, not paying too much attention to their contents. He was pretty sure he knew what was in them anyway: a bag of rice, some dried toast, perhaps a newspaper and a deck of cards.

A finger snapped in front of his face, jolting him out of his head and back into the present situation, “You okay there, Caleb?” Beau asked, a look of genuine concern peeking through her neutral expression.

“Uh… yes. I’m fine. A-ok,” he muttered, shifting his hands from within his pockets. He turned his eyes away from Beau and looked down towards the cement sidewalk, “I just would’ve liked to have known where we were going beforehand.”

“So you could’ve said no?” Jester asked, crossing her arms and lifting her chin in an indignant fashion.

“Well, uh, _maybe?_ ” He stammered before correcting himself, “No, yes, I would have said no.”

“But you’ve never even seen it, how would you even _know_ if you didn’t like it?” Jester asked.

Caleb huffed, shifting around on his feet before staring Jester straight in the eye, “I _have_ seen Rocky Horror, Jester.”

With that, the line in front of them began to move and Caleb hurried to follow them in, intently ignoring the others behind him. He walked right past the bouncer, Yasha, who let him in as Jester handed her the tickets. Once inside, he stopped in his tracks, taking the overwhelming air around him. People stood in line at the concession stand, waiting to buy popcorn as well as supplies for the show. He came to the anxious realization that he had no clue what he was doing when someone came up from behind him and weaved their arm into the crook of his elbow.

“Jester and Fjord are getting the popcorn,” Beau said, “I know where our seats are.” And with that, she led him through the crowd of theatre-goers, unafraid to use her shoulders and elbows to get people out of the way as quickly as possible. Together, they walked towards the entrance on the left side of the concession stand. The theatre inside had two levels with a dozen or so rows of seats, split into three columns. Beau lead them to centre for seats in the first row of the theatre.

Caleb goes to sit down in the aisle seat before Beau stopped him, “Trust me, you don’t want to sit there. That’s Jester’s seat.” She explained, motioning for him to sit in the other aisle seat before she sat beside him. He leaned back in his seat, crossing his legs out in front of him. The theatre was warmer than he expected, and he was beginning to heat up in his overcoat. His pettiness, however, dictated that he couldn’t take it off. He had a point to prove, and if overheating was going to help him make it then damn it he would do it.

He and Beau remained silent as everyone else filed in around them. Jester and Fjord came in with the popcorn a few minutes later, and Caleb accepted it silently before placing it on the ground. The theatre lights went down around them until it was dark, which is when a floodlight lit up the makeshift stage in front of the projector screen, revealing a man dressed in a floor-length black cape with a high collar covering his body.

“Woohoo! Go, Molly!” Jester screamed out amid the shouting crowd. Molly smiled at the girl, waiting for the noise to die down.

“Hello my little monsters!” Mollymauk said to the crowd, receiving another round of shouts. His voice was tinged with the hint of an Irish accent. Caleb saw a flash of tattoo running up the side of his face, slightly obscured by a curly-haired black wig. The heavy eye makeup and red lipstick accompanied by the floor-length cape made the role he was supposed to be playing completely unmistakeable.

“Oh, it’s lovely to see you all here, veterans and virgins alike.”

“Virgins!”

“Virgins!”

“Where are you Virgins?” 

The entire theatre once again lit up in a cacophony of shouts. From up on the stage Molly soaked up the energy of the venue, “No worries, friends, I’ll make sure to pop all their cherries tonight,” he said, his voice descending into a low growl. He knew how to work a crowd.

“But that’ll have to wait until later, build your antici-”

He didn’t even need to pause before the audience replied, “Say it!”

“-pation. First, I must remind you, folks, that while we here at the Moondrop theatre love your participation, including all the things you may want to throw, we do not enjoy you throwing anything at _us_. Rice and toast go straight up into the air, right?”

“Right!”

“Perfect, darlings. Well then, sit back, and enjoy the show!”

With that, the spotlight went dark. From behind him, Caleb heard the whirring of the projector. The 20th century Fox logo lit up the screen, quickly replaced by a pair of lips covered in bright-red lipstick. On stage, the spotlight shined upon a girl dressed in a tattered usher’s uniform accompanied by a group of four people in head-to-toe leather, including leather bondage masks that covered almost their entire face except for their mouths.

Despite the risqué costume choice, Caleb managed to make it through the first number in relative peace. He sat back in his chair with crossed arms and eyes closed, mumbling the well-learned lyrics under his breath. Close to the end of the song, he was rudely awakened by the feeling of an elbow jabbing in his side. Looking over to Beau, she gestured to him with an enclosed fist that no doubt held a handful of rice within its grasp. He shook his head at her, and even though he couldn’t see her facial features, he was still pretty sure he got an over exaggerated eye roll in return. On the screen, wedding bells rang, and a cloud of rice rained down upon them. Caleb watched as the actors on stage re-enacted the entire scene, as the crowd shouted slurs of _slut_ and _asshole_ whenever the main character’s names were mentioned. Out of his three friends, he could unsurprisingly hear Jester the loudest, followed very closely by Beau. Fjord was lost amongst them, but every once in a while Caleb could hear his southern drawl peak through. He found that a smile had somehow found its way onto his lips, sneaking in while he soaked up the enthusiasm of his friends.

Brad and Janet’s car broke down, and Caleb made to sure to get out the newspaper included in his supply bag, opening it and placing it on top of his head before the people behind them began to spray water from spray bottles and water pistols onto the front rows, attempting to hit the actors on stage. Some water still escaped despite his makeshift umbrella, coming into the contact with the back of his neck. He shivered at the touch. Afterwards, he rolled up the newspaper and put it at his feet, finally deciding to take off his jacket as the opening bars of the Time Warp filled the theatre speakers. From up on stage, Riff Raff, Magenta, and Columbia went down into the audience, picking people up from their seats and bringing them to the front.

He looked to see that Jester didn’t even need an invitation before she was running up, pulling Fjord behind her by the wrist. She went up to the front of the pack with the rest of the actors, jumping and stepping and thrusting her hips like the rest of them, albeit with less style and a lot more flair. Beside her, Fjord looked lost, glancing in her direction every few seconds to see if he was doing it right. He was probably even more clueless than Caleb was, but he seemed to be taking the entire experience in stride. At the end of the song, as all the actors collapsed to the floor and the rest of the standing audience began to return to their seat, Jester performed a perfectly timed dead drop to the applause of many. Caleb couldn’t help himself, he laughed with the rest of them, clapping at his friend’s antics as Fjord helped her off the ground a hand. She skipped back to her seat, smiling at the thumbs-up that Beau sent her way.

Jester sat forward in her seat, and as Janet was berating her fiancé for being an idiot, a quiet chant of “Frank, Frank, Frank, Frank” had overtaken the theatre. Jester squealed in excitement as Janet screamed in terror, and Caleb whipped his head towards the stage to see Molly strutting towards the audience. His body was still hidden under the cape as he lip-synced the words to _Sweet Transvestite_ , a gaudy-looking throne being wheeled behind him by one of the members of the cast.

At the end of his catwalk, he looked down at the audience, roving his eyes over then until he finally landed on Caleb, giving him a wink before he threw off his cape onto the throne behind him. 

**Author's Note:**

> Whaaaaat? Am I posting another multi-chapter? We all know how dangerous that can be.
> 
> Anyways, I've been in a Rocky Horror kind of mood lately (whatever that means) and I've watched the movie like... five times in the past month and that's obviously made an impression on whatever creativity I've got locked up in my head.
> 
> So enjoy! There's certainly more to come.


End file.
